Known vehicles have various levels of automation. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has defined multiple levels of autonomous vehicle operation. At levels 0-2, a human driver monitors or controls the majority of the driving tasks, often with no help from the vehicle. For example, at level 0 (“no automation”), a human driver is responsible for all vehicle tasks. At level 1 (“driver assistance”), the vehicle sometimes assists with steering, acceleration, or braking, but the driver is still responsible for the vast majority of the vehicle tasks. At level 2 (“partial automation”), the vehicle can control steering, acceleration, and braking under certain circumstances without human interaction. At levels 3-5, the vehicle assumes more driving-related tasks. At level 3 (“conditional automation”), the vehicle can handle steering, acceleration, and braking under certain circumstances, as well as monitoring of the driving environment. Level 3 requires the driver to intervene occasionally, however. At level 4 (“high automation”), the vehicle can handle the same tasks as at level 3 but without relying on the driver to intervene in certain driving modes. At level 5 (“full automation”), the vehicle can handle almost all tasks without any driver intervention. The host vehicle may operate in one or more of the levels of autonomous vehicle operation.
Various devices and methods are also known to transition control of the driving tasks from the vehicle, i.e. automated control, to the driver, i.e. manual control, and vice versa. Improvements to the devices and methods are desired.